Janice Meredith eBook

“Go on with thy own dressing, Tabitha,”
ordered Mrs. Meredith, taking the strings from her
hand. “Now breathe out, Janice.”

Miss Meredith drew a long breath, and then expelled
it, instant advantage being taken by her mother to
strain the strings. “Again,” she
said, holding all that had been gained, and the operation
was repeated, this time the edges of the frock meeting
across the back.

“It hurts,” complained the owner of the
waist, panting, while the upper part of her bust rose
and fell rapidly in an attempt to make up for the
crushing of the lower lungs.

“I lose all patience with thee, Janice,”
cried her mother. “Here when thou hast
been given by Providence a waist that would be the
envy of any York woman, that thou shouldst object
to clothes made to set it off to a proper advantage.”

“It hurts all the same,” reiterated Janice;
“and last year I could beat Jacky Whitehead,
but now when I try to run in my new frocks I come
nigh to dying of breathlessness.”

“I should hope so!” exclaimed her mother.
“A female of fifteen run with a boy, indeed!
The very idea is indelicate. Now, as soon as
thou hast put on thy slippers and goloe-shoes, go
to thy father, who has been told of thy misbehaviour,
and who will reprove thee for it.” And
with this last damper on the “lightness of young
people,” as Mrs. Meredith phrased it, she once
more left the room. It is a regrettable fact that
Miss Janice, who had looked the picture of submission
as her mother spoke, made a mouth, which was far from
respectful, at the departing figure.

“Oh, Janice,” said Tabitha, “will
he be very severe?”

“Severe?” laughed Janice. “If
dear dadda is really angry, I’ll let tears come
into my eyes, and then he’ll say he’s sorry
he hurt my feelings, and kiss me; but if he’s
only doing it to please mommy, I’ll let my eyes
shine, and then he’ll laugh and tell me to kiss
him. Oh, Tibbie, what a nice time we could have
if women were only as easy to manage as men!”
With this parting regret, Miss Meredith sallied forth
to receive the expected reproof.

The lecture or kiss received,—­and a sight
of Miss Meredith would have led the casual observer
to opine that the latter was the form of punishment
adopted,—­the two girls mounted into the
big, lumbering coach along with their elders, and were
jolted and shaken over the four miles of ill-made road
that separated Greenwood, the “seat,”
as the “New York Gazette” termed it, of
the Honourable Lambert Meredith, from the village
of Brunswick, New Jersey. Either this shaking,
or something else, put the two maidens in a mood quite
unbefitting the day, for in the moment they tarried
outside the church while the coach was being placed
in the shed, Miss Drinker’s face was frowning,
and once again Miss Meredith’s nails were dug
deep into the little palms of her hands.